The Phenomenological Ressourcement: An Exploration of the Philosophical Foundations and Consequences of the
Nouvelle Théologie Leagon Carlin
T
he movement of the Nouvelle Théologie, emerging developmentally in the mid 1930s, was one of a return to sources. This orientation toward a return to origins and beginnings gave rise to the name that is widely given to the operating principle of the movement: ressourcement. This French term, literally meaning “a return to sources,” encompasses the goal of the theological movement that would come to define the thinking of the Second Vatican Council, and the Church thereafter. The thinkers who defined this movement, specifically those in France, were profoundly influenced philosophically by the thought of phenomenologists like Maurice Blondel, whose application of the phenomenological method to the Christian life in the Church served as a foundation for the worldview and method of thought found in the ressourcement movement. Further, the phenomenological character of the Nouvelle Théologie is made evident in the thought of the later philosophers on whom this ressourcement was influential. In a special way, the philosophical personalism of Fr. Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, is a closely related descendent in the same philosophical lineage stemming from the Nouvelle Théologie. The Effects, before the Cause The document which could, perhaps arguably, be called the “culmination” of the worldview of the ressourcement movement is the final and summary document of the Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes, generally titled in English as “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” put forward the framework for the Church’s interaction with the world, Her animating principles when doing the work of Salvation. This document, though the subject of
